Your Deferred Defined Benefits

The Defined Benefit Plan within the Baptist Pension Scheme, previously called the Baptist Ministers' Pension Fund, has been closed to new contributions since 31 December 2011. As a deferred member, the benefits you have built up are protected and will continue to increase. When you retire, you will be entitled to:

a deferred pension, payable from your normal pension date or

at any time prior to retirement, a transfer value, paid to another approved pension arrangement.

The Ministers' DB Plan booklet provides full details of the Defined Benefits Plan. If you have any queries please contact the scheme administrators. If you are a previous member of the BU Staff Pension Scheme, the BUSPS DB Plan Booklet provides full details.

You will continue to receive a Summary Funding Statement every year as part of the Pensions Newsletter. Please ensure that you keep the scheme administrators (BBS Consultants & Actuaries Ltd) informed of your up to date address. Summary Funding Statements from recent years can be viewed in the Useful Documents page.

Pension Increases

As a Deferred member your Deferred Pension will be subject to Pension Increases. Please refer back to your original Deferred Benefits Statement to view the method(s) by which your increases will be calculated.

How to Transfer Out your deferred Defined Benefits

If you wish to transfer out your deferred Defined Benefits, please contact the scheme administrators to request a Transfer Quotation.

You can transfer your benefits, if you have more than 2 years service and are under 65. The transfer must be either to another Occupational pension scheme (in which case, you will need to check with the new pension scheme that it will accept the transfer) or to a personal pension arrangement.

A Transfer Quotation is guaranteed if the transfer payment is made within 3 months of the quotation being issued. If more than 3 months have passed then a new Transfer Quotation will be calculated and this may be higher or lower than the first quotation. You are entitled to request a Transfer Quotation up to once every 12 months.

Important Notes

We strongly recommend that you take independent financial advice before deciding to transfer out your deferred Defined Benefits as there is a genuine risk that you will transfer to a pension scheme providing a lower level of benefits than the Baptist Pension Scheme. In particular, if you wish to transfer out of our Defined Benefits arrangement into a Defined Contribution scheme, then the Baptist Pension Trustees will require you to confirm that you have taken independent financial advice before any transfer is agreed.

Warning

If you are contacted by anyone who claims that they can help you release money from your pension fund before you reach retirement age, you should ignore them or seek financial advice from a reputable adviser.

Pension loans or cash incentives are being used, alongside misleading information, to entice pension savers. This activity is known as “pension liberation fraud”.

The Pensions Regulator has launched an awareness campaign against pension liberation schemes, amidst reports that they have become much more prevalent over recent years. In the last four years an estimated £400m has been transferred to these schemes, involving thousands of individuals.

Typically those individuals, who have been seeking early access to their pension savings, have instead ended up losing much of their savings in substantial commission payments and exceptionally large tax charges, due as a result of the payments being unauthorised.

If you would like more information on pension liberation fraud, the Pensions Regulator’s website has some useful documents that set out the dangers involved.